[Dave Crampton]

Hi folks,

Popped down to Abbs today. Twas quite windy, though it was blowing off the west and as Abbs looks out NE we were fine. Joined up with a few guys from Lothian, getting a guy through his AOW dives. We went out to White Heuge, and had a wee bimble round in the rocks at 12m, for 30 mins. Bit boring and not much life outside the anenomes. I was the first off billies boat for 2005!!
Then after popping back to harbour to change cylinders and pick up a couple more divers, before we headed out to Wuddy Rocks. All I can say is Woooww weee!!!. For anyone who doesn't know the site, Billy drops you off at the side of the large rock, see piccy, and you swim north and then west through a narrow, gap in the rocks, not very unlike a cave. Its all dark from the outside but brightens up inside as the roof has a very narrow crack running the length. The cave opens up inside and the bottom rises from 12m to 8m, bearing right/North, and ends up squeezing you out into Burnmouth Harbour. As the squeeze out is narrow you fly out with the outward surges and hold on for the return surges. Then heading into the harbour, we headed down, and followed the wall to our right. This brings you eventually round to another large looking gap between two very large rocks/walls. This time the gap at the top of the rocks is so narrow, and the length of the tunnel 7m long as to make the inside look very dark. There are spectacular waves in the boulders and stones which line the bottom of the tunnel, formed by the continual surging back and forth of the water in and out of the harbour especially in rough seas. The rocks are white/grey in colour contrasted quite brilliantly with the red boulders and stones forming waves in the tunnel. So being carried with the outward surges and stopping in the troffs of the stone/boulder waves for the inward surges we worked our way through this larger sponge finger lined tunnel, exiting just outside the entrance to the first narrower crack we'd entered by. Signalling OK to Rob, and seeing he had 140 BAR left I made a circling movement with my right forefinger, signalling, again?? A BIG OK came back and we repeated the circuit, this time flying through the tunnels. After the exit a second time, we headed out east into open water before deploying my DSMB and assending to the surface. What a remarkable dive.

Dave C